


beyond the shore

by softnow



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s01e13 Beyond the Sea, F/M, Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 05:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16033925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softnow/pseuds/softnow
Summary: an alternate take. mulder comes to dinner. the phone still rings.





	beyond the shore

**Author's Note:**

> based on the anon prompt: "Mulder had met Scully's parents at the Christmas dinner she hosted and was there when Scully got the call."

i.

It’s her mother’s idea. She calls after work one evening and cuts straight to the chase.

“Dana,” she says. “This man is responsible for keeping you safe out there. We want to meet him.”

She uses her mom voice. There’s no sense in arguing.

ii.

“Meeting the parents already, Scully?” he says when she asks him. “We getting serious?”

He smirks at her, all easy charm and amusement from behind his feet stacked on his desk, and she feels her cheeks bloom even as she rolls her eyes.

“Look, never mind,” she says. “Just because they asked doesn’t mean you have to—”

“No.” He drops his feet and leans forward, eyes softening. “No, I’ll come.”

She stares at him for a moment, searches his face for traces of sarcasm or mockery. When she finds none, she nods.

“Okay.”

He grins. “Okay.”

iii.

He shows up fifteen minutes early in a sweater the same deep red as the bottle of merlot in his hand, and it is somehow more surreal than seeing him covered in bile in an empty shopping center.

“Smells good in here.”

He pushes past her into the living room and hangs his coat in her closet like he’s been here more than four times. She goes back to the kitchen and he follows, peaking into the pots on the stove while she tosses the salad.

“Hey,” he says, fishing out a green bean. “Think your parents’ll tell me any embarrassing childhood stories? I’d love to hear about the time you got your braces stuck to some other kid’s face. They got anything like that?”

She centers the salad bowl on the table and takes a deep breath. She regrets this already. Her father is never going to let her hear the end of it. You could have been a doctor, Dana. A  _practicing_  doctor, Dana. One who works on real, live, certifiably human patients. Who doesn’t spend the best years of her life in a dusty basement with a guy who believes in Sasquatch,  _Dana._

“Scully, hey.” He comes up beside her and dips his face into her line of sight. “I’m kidding, okay? I’m good with parents. Trust me. It’s gonna be fine.”

He squeezes her shoulder and gives her a look, suddenly serious. Trust me.

The doorbell startles them apart.

iv.

He wasn’t lying. He  _is_  good with parents. He charms her mother right away, kissing her cheek and saying how nice it is to finally meet her. He shakes her father’s hand, matches his steady gaze, and calls him  _captain._

Scully begins to relax.

Dinner goes perfectly. They talk about work, but not the dangerous bits. Or the alien bits. Or the Sasquatch bits. Mulder tells the story of them saving a NASA shuttle, and he doesn’t correct her when she corrects him.

He says  _please would you pass the—_  and  _thank you,_  and she sees evidence, for perhaps the first time, of that Vineyard upbringing.

When Ahab launches into a thinly veiled interrogation, Mulder rises to the challenge, delivering the sorts of abbreviated truths that won’t earn Scully hours and hours of defending herself and her partner and her choices. Her father asks why they were paired together—a story she’s already told, thankyouverymuch, back when she got this assignment—and Mulder just shrugs.

“Our work benefits from a scientific viewpoint sometimes,” he says. “And she’s the best they have.”

He catches her eye and smiles. Something warm unspools in her ribcage. It’s the most straight-forward compliment he’s ever given her, the closest thing to appreciation.

Ahab makes a noise of acknowledgement, and her mother beams. It’s gonna be fine, Mulder said. Scully bites her cheek to restrain a smile and rises to clear away the plates.

v.

After her parents leave, Mulder lingers. The wine he brought sits unopened on the counter, and on a whim, feeling bold and content from a successful evening, Scully takes down two glasses and uncorks the bottle.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asks, swirling his glass like a wannabe sommelier.

“No.” She takes a drink. “Thank you.”

He nods and doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “They seem nice,” he says. “I can see where… They seem like good people.”

“They are.” She puts the last of the dishes in the sink and allows herself one small, private smile before turning back to him, eyebrow raised. “And you certainly made an impression. What was that, by the way?”

“What was what?” he asks, the picture of innocence. Then he grins. The picture of something else. “I told you I was good with parents, Scully.”

“Mmm.”

Better than every boyfriend I’ve ever had, she doesn’t say. Better than every person I’ve ever brought home. What did you do with my partner?

vi. 

They’ve never done this before. Just hang out. But it seems somehow appropriate tonight, like they’ve been through some mutual battle and escaped unscathed.

He still has to drive home, so they don’t drink more than the one glass apiece, but they do migrate to the living room, to opposite ends of her comfortable striped couch.

“Hey, when do I get to meet your siblings?” he asks, when the forgettable movie they’ve stumbled upon is on commercial.

“Have a quota to meet or something?” She is warm and sleepy, full on good food and relief.

“Oh, you know.” He watches her with half-mast eyes, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “Gotta see if these Mulder charms work on all the Scullys.”

She can’t think of anything to say to that, and the phone rescues her, ringing on the end table.

vii.

The clunk of hard plastic bouncing on the carpet makes his head snap up. She barely notices.

Dana, it’s your father. Dana, it’s your father. Danaitsyourfatherdanaitsyourfatherdanaitsyour—

“Scully?” That’s his worried voice. She knows that voice. She’s worrying him. She should stop. She should— “Scully. What’s wrong? What is it?”

Dana, it’s your—

“Dad.” Where is her voice coming from? Her mouth is numb. “It’s my dad.”

“What?”

She drags her eyes up to his. The concern on his face… God, she can’t breathe. She can’t breathe and she’s too hot and she’s too cold and her  _dad._

“My dad is dead.”

viii.

There’s a beat of silence. The clock stands still. Maybe her dad isn’t dead.

Then Mulder crosses to her, crushes her into his arms, and her dad is dead. Her dad is dead.

She stands frozen, her cheek pressed to Mulder’s sweater. His red wine-colored sweater. Like the wine he brought to meet her parents. Her parents. She has only one parent now.

“Scully,” he rasps, his mouth in her hair. “Scully, I’m so sorry.”

She nods. Yes. She’s sorry, too. So sorry. Her dad is dead.

ix. 

He drives her to the hospital and watches her from the corner of his eye almost as much as he watches the road.

Her mom. God, her mom. Her mom sits in a hard plastic chair, her face in her hands. She’s never seen her mom cry like this. Like the world is ending. Like her dad is dead.

They hug and they hug and they hug and they hug. She pats her mom’s hair and breathes the last traces of her father’s cologne still lingering there.

“I’ll drive you home,” Mulder says, so quietly it could be a dream.

x.

Her parents’ house. Her parent’s house. It’s too big now.

She makes tea. Three cups of it. Then toast. A whole plate of it. Nobody eats it, but she makes it anyway. Slice after slice after slice of burnt wheat bread, just like her father eats it. Ate it.

Mulder lingers in the doorway. Her mother splashes more than a splash of whiskey in her tea and goes to bed, drifting ghost-like down the hall. Scully toasts. And toasts and toasts. When she runs out of bread, she cleans the counter.

“Scully.”

She shakes her head, her back to him. “Thank you for the ride, Mulder. You can go home now.”

This sponge is filthy. She throws it away and grabs a wad of paper towels. The Clorox stings her eyes.

“Scully, stop.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s dirty. I have to—”

“Scully.” Closer. “Please, just come sit down.”

There is grease on the stove. One little splatter near the back. If her dad sees that—if her dad  _saw_  that.

“Scully, come on.”

If her dad saw that. If he saw that. But he didn’t see that, because it’s still there, and it’s still there because he won’t see it, because he can’t see it, because he’s dead he’s dead her dad is dead cold expired deceased gone her dad is dead.

“Dana.” His arms come around her as she crumbles.

He doesn’t shush her or tell her it’s okay. It is four in the morning and her father is dead.


End file.
